Buckeyes’ best rotations

I’ve been thinking for the past few weeks if coach Thad Matta is going to keep going nine deep with his lineup as much as he has once the Big Ten schedule starts.

Matta said several times in December that he is happy with the contributions he’s getting from all nine of his scholarship players and that he has no plans to shrink the rotation for the Big Ten, as he has in the past sometimes. Of course, how some players play off the bench starting today at Purdue could change his mind.

With this in mind, I spent some idle time the past few weeks tracking all the lineups Matta used during the 13 nonconference games (52, including those with walk-on Jake Lorbach at the end of games) to see which had the best plus-minus ratings (points scored vs. points allowed while on the floor).

Off of that, I also was able to figure out the plus-minus ratings for the nine players in the rotation, based on points-per-minute-played average since some players play more than others. Here are both lists, which hopefully I’ll find the time to update as the Big Ten season rolls on: